The Struths in 2017

Round Robin Time…

Hiya everyone!

I’ll explain the title for those of you that don’t get it… When I explained to my Mum that I was doing a blog post to close the year and let everyone know what we were up to in 2017 she said ‘oh, like a round robin’… didn’t have a clue what she was on about! A quick google later and she was pretty spot on, hence the name!

I want to thank you all so much for checking in with us. We’ve posted a lovely video of our wedding highlights of the year, but thought we would do a bit of an alternative blog post to end the year with.

We thought we would keep our couples (and our family and friends really) up to date with what we’ve been up to this year and how our 2017 has gone, both personally as well as professionally!

So we started 2017 with our first wedding of the year in February, it was Cheri & Ryan’s big day at A Hard Days Night Hotel in Liverpool City. It was a gorgeous day to start off the year and their wedding was fantastically fun!

We had an absolutely chocker summer with weddings where we travelled all over the UK, as low down as Kent and as high up as the Lake District! We have genuinely had an absolutely fabulous year wedding wise and our couples are just the best!

Unfortunately in August of this year Ant’s beautiful Mum Jane passed away. It was such a tough time for us, but our couples were incredibly understanding and helpful during that time.

We’ve clung tighter together as a family with our two girls, and Ant and I were thankful to be by Jane’s side as she passed away, with other close family members. Jane had a combination of illnesses from epilepsy, cancer and she was tragically diagnosed with MS in 2013 which took over her so rapidly and her health greatly deteriorated.

One thing we have learned is there is just not enough knowledge or funding around MS, and so 2018 will lead to us, as a family, getting creative and doing some fundraising for MS Society.

I can’t even begin to explain the hole Jane has left in our hearts and we have a deeper understanding of what photographs really mean to people. When you’re hunting around through boxes of prints and scrolling through old Facebook posts to find some comfort in her face, it really brings it home about the importance of our job and how that can affect people in the long term.

As usual our girls Grace and Ivy have been ruling the world. Grace became student councillor for her year group at school and has made some real progress with helping other children in the school now, and for years and years to come, we are extremely proud of her. Grace has also been doing excellent with her tech club called Little Sandbox, where she has been doing coding, electronics and laser cutting among other amazing things, you should really check them out! She’s also been absolutely nailing her piano lessons and is looking to take her graded exam in the new year.

Ivy’s had a pretty awesome year too, she started Reception in September and has settled down amazingly! She’s a little book worm and seems to be off to a flying start in spite of being the youngest in her class. Ivy was also delighted to be informed she would be playing Mary in her school nativity, it was a very coveted role and I think her (over)confidence helped her in the stakes!

Our cats are as lethargic as ever! They picked their heads up for a few minutes when our Christmas tree was put up, that was about it! Other than eating us out of house and home and lying in the comfiest spots in the house, they haven’t been up to much!

Back to business, we have had a rebrand! the awesome Trevor Kennedy has done us a new logo and pretty things to go with it, we are super pleased! We didn’t want anything too fussy, that could distract people from our images! We wanted something natural, a bit quirky and simple and he definitely fulfilled the brief, we love it!

I started doing some commercial work with the wonderfully talented Rachael Taylor with her company and her sister company Make It In Design which has been an amazing learning curve, so exciting, interesting and fun! And I have some more shoots booked in for 2018!

I also had the absolute pleasure this year of photographing my first ever birth. Our first bride of the year Cheri went in to labour and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl called Penny and I was there to document it with her and her husband Ryan. It was an experience I will never forget in my life.

My beautiful Sister Emma and (soon to be) Brother-in-Law Andy got engaged this Winter in Iceland and it was an absolute shock for her and they are both over the moon. We are on strictly no-wedding talk terms until Christmas is over, so don’t tell them I mentioned it!

Our best friends Melissa and David both also got engaged this year in Greece and we were in on the secret months before. I realised holding my tongue was bloody hard work!!

There is probably LOADS more I could add to this but don’t want to go to overboard and bore you all to death! Please check out the video above and let us know what you think

Me, Ant & Our Cherubs wish you all the most wonderful of Christmases and the happiest of New Years, see you in 2018!!!